Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Kickstarter for Veronica Mars

Yes, I was/am a fan of the series. Yes. I've got "We used to be friends" by the Dandy Warhols as a ring-tone on my JesusPhone. And, yes, I pledged money for the Kickstarter fund.

I sort of have mixed emotions on this and I'll kick them around below.

Positive. A Veronica Mars movie. Seriously. I've been holding out hope for this for a long time. There have been a lot of rumors over the years about this and it looks like a go. I mean, it's not locked yet (as of this writing, it's at 1.6 mil of its 2 mil goal after 6 hours) but it should easily clear 2 million in 30 days.

Negative. There was a pent up demand for this and it literally took the shows creators to convince the fans to pay for it. Even though doesn't even OWN the character. Warner Bros does. Warner Bros will make all the profit. For distribution.

Positive. The fans spoke and now the entertainment world must listen.

Negative. Much of Hollywood is a cultural and creative wasteland that does very little that is original, riding on the wave of popular sentiment until is washes up on shore, dead and bloated.

Positive. Crowd-sourcing will gain a huge bump from this exposure.

Negative. Lazy/cheap companies will "cleverly" try to push as much of this kind of stuff onto fans going forward. The idea of letting the fans do the hard work will be embraced by all the accountants and lawyers.

Positive. This will be a nice thank you to the creatives who did take a chance on this property when it initially aired. It was different and it was smart and daring. And it was buried by lack of confidence by the network and destroyed by bad marketing. The people who showed up were rewarded and stuck around.

Negative. Every other crap show is going to go this route. How long until some jerk tries to make Family Matters movie?